Dutch film funding agency supports Ganz documentary

We are very happy to report that the Dutch film funding agency (Het Filmfonds) has agreed to support the production of the documentary How I Invented The Volkswagen with the substantial amount of 120,000 euro. Dutch production studio Submarine is currently funding this project, which is planned for realization starting in the fall of 2015.

The feature documentary How I Invented The Volkswagen tells the compelling and never-before-told story of Jewish engineer Josef Ganz, who invented Adolf Hitler’s dream: the Volkswagen Beetle, and who ultimately lost everything except his life.

Josef Ganz, the eccentric editor-in-chief of the controversial but hugely influential trade journal Motor-Kritik, amazed Germany by appearing in a revolutionary tiny car in 1931. This car, his brainchild, is part of his dream for the German people: a Volkswagen that anyone can afford. Josef Ganz shared his dream through Motor-Kritik and, in 1933, proudly presented the first basic Beetle-model before the new Chancellor Adolf Hitler at the Berlin motor show. After that, it was only a matter of time before the new government, whom Ganz initially supported fervently, would fulfil his dreams. But in Hitler’s dream there was no place for him, the Jew. In order to filch Ganz’s invention away from its creator, a history of intrigue, espionage and slander campaigns was set in motion.